


Nearer, My John, to Thee

by MistyBeethoven



Series: The Exorcist and the Dead Girl [1]
Category: Constantine (2005)
Genre: Dead People, Dead/Living Relationship, F/M, GRADUAL ACCEPTANCE, Ghosts, Longing, Love Stories, Realizations, Romantic Soulmates, Starcrossed Lovers, Sweet and a little dirty, theological discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 20:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: Out of loneliness, John Constantine finds himself falling into a relationship with Angela Dodson only to gradually realize he is really in love with her dead sister, Isabel.





	Nearer, My John, to Thee

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading this thinking it is one of my regular "John Wick" Adick fics because of the name John being in the title I am so sorry! This is a "Constantine" one. I didn't want to confuse anybody but John just fit so well in the title. Keanu Reeves plays a lot of guys named John.
> 
> I also am aware that I do a lot of fics centered around the relationships between the living and the dead. It's just something I like, I guess.

Falling in love had always seemed a necessary evil to John Constantine; it helped to support the families of anybody sad enough to have to work at Valentine's companies, brought tourists to Niagra Falls to witness large amounts of water spilling over cliffs and the odd nut going over it all in a barrel and overall it made life a little more bearable for the poor souls who tricked themselves into believing that, not only was it real, that it also happened to be just around the corner.

It also provided God and Satan with an endless wave of more human beings they could each try to win when all the love sick idiots decided to copulate.

This necessary evil, while seeming kind of sweet and pretty, like a fancy teacup you'd purchase in a China shop, had never much persuaded him to either try it for himself or believe in it all that much.

God was real; the devil was real; angels and demons and all that lay between were real. But romantic _love_?

Maybe not so much.

That had all changed when he had met Angela Dodson a cop working for the LAPD whose twin sister had just thrown herself off of a hospital's roof and was on the verge of being used to birth Lucifer's son.

Constantine had managed to stop all of the ensuing nonsense but not before losing a few very dear friends along with his heart.

There was one small problem, however: he was not in love with Angela.

John Constantine was really in love with the dead sister.

The other problem was that he wasn't aware of it.

Not really anyway.

Grabbing the phone and calling Angela's precinct he had truly _believed_ that he was calling for Angela; that he had wanted to see the beautiful police woman again.

It was hard to divide Angela from her sister, Constantine would often tell himself. It was normal after all; they were twins. Surely he could be forgiven if he remembered Isabel standing in hell, and saying his name like it was some kind of talisman, every time he thought of the living Dodson sibling.

Constantine could lie to himself when he was with Angela that he wanted to be with her; she was beautiful, funny, charming and could kill a demon better than a character from a William Peter Blatty novel.

Being with her was also a way to escape the loneliness that had seized him following the events at the hospital. Constantine, knew he was not naturally the most social of creatures, and though he had been regretfully reluctant to admit it, he had considered Father Hennessey, Beeman and Chas all as dear, if not respected all of the time, friends. John felt their absense more than the loss of the cigarettes and nicotene he was now faithfully avoiding.

He found himself visiting Midnite more often at the club more than he would have liked. Even Balthazar was occassionally missed if only for the fact that he had been familiar. Sometimes, Constantine would see Gabriel around, looking like some lost pathetic thing seeking entrance back to its Father's kingdom.

"Now you know what it feels like," he had spat at it one day as they passed on the street outside of a cathedral.

It had been all too easy to contact Angela one night when it seemed a little too quiet outside and there was a strange sensation like a cloud always threatening to storm but never finding the energy to hanging over his heart.

All it had taken was one little phone call and Constantine had found himself falling into a habitual relationship with the woman who had seemed eager to meet with him, as if she had been waiting in expectation for his call ever since the day they had parted.

John knew that she probably had been.

It didn't make the unknown guilt he felt disappear any faster.

* * *

The funny thing about that first date, if you can call a quick chat in a greasy spoon where you only drink bad coffee a date, was that Constantine thought he kept seeing Isabel afterwards. Walking through the crowded streets, catching a ride on a bus, the man was convinced that he would catch a glimpse of the dead woman, even if she was very distant and would vanish if he concentrated too hard, like trying to focus on something your brain couldn't quite process.

There was no way it was Angela, John knew, unless the rational woman had taken to wearing a hospital gown in public.

No. It had looked like _Isabel_.

But the girl was dead and in Heaven so it could not _really_ be her. John convinced himself he was seeing her only for the fact that he wanted to.

He wouldn't allow himself to think too much about why he would _want_ to.

* * *

Angela and Constantine would often go out together when she wasn't sending people to prison and he wasn't returning demons back to Hell. It was a comfortable relationship. Except it wasn't all that comfortable when John would think he had spotted Isabel again or when he would look at Angela and find himself wondering what her dead twin sister would have done on a date or how she would have reacted to the little truths he would reveal.

They were at the same horrible diner, the rain was falling against the window in harsh angry patterns and John Constantine thought he saw Isabel Dodson standing in it at the same distance away she usually kept when he finally admitted to himself that he would have preferred admitting to Isabel that he hated the greasy spoons' bagels the most instead of her sister.

Upon this acceptance he thought the thing resembling Isabel had taken a step closer.

In fright, he looked away and turned his attention back to Angela as she animatedly described a shoot out she had been involved in two years ago.

Whereas Constantine possessed the bravery to encounter and confront an army of supernatural and nasty monsters he did not have the courage to look outside the window again.

* * *

They had been dating for three weeks but still they hadn't even kissed, Constantine dryly considered one afternoon.

All they ever did was talk and the man had come to the sudden realization that whenever they did he always waited with bated breath for his girlfriend to mention her dead sister.

In fact, John knew, he always found ways to bring the conversation back to Isabel Dodson. He enjoyed hearing about the little girl who had embraced her gift of seeing the world between Heaven and Hell. He delighted in any random drop of information that would absently fall from Angela's beautiful red and very much alive lips.

Some part of him had known then that Isabel would very much have understood him in a way nobody else could, not even her living sister who could see things now too.

After that morning the creature that looked like Isabel Dodson had moved ever closer still.

* * *

By the time Constantine finally kissed Angela Dodson, and after a handful more epiphanies that he was attracted more to Isabel, the Isabel thing had taken to residing with him.

It had even started to talk much to his chagrin.

"But I _am_ Isabel," she often said exasperated as she loitered around his apartment.

"You can't be," Constantine had hissed. "She is in Heaven. I made Lucifer allow her to go there."

"I always wanted to thank you for that," she smiled. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Constantine had replied. "Now get out of my damn apartment!"

The Isabel thing shook her head. "Language John!"

"Fine. Get out of my darn apartment," John corrected. "Better?"

"Well I never could figure out expletitive substitutions when they mean the same damn thing," the creature had stated innocently.

It then started to laugh and John Constantine wished to God that it was really Isabel Dodson.

He continued to set the table and ignored the thing, waiting for Angela to arrive.

"You know you shouldn't do this," the Isabel facsimile said sadly. "You'll only end up hurting her. I love Angela. Just admit to yourself that you love me and let her go find somebody that _will_ love her."

Constantine rammed a fork into the table, knicking it as he did.

"And what would I have then?" John asked.

"You could have me," the creature smiled.

"And God's just going to allow that?" Constantine asked. "A million heartbroken lovers separated by death but me, John sinner Constantine, can have you?"

"You don't understand Him," the Isabel thing remarked. "All this time, John Constantine, you've been running around thinking that God doesn't love you and that you had to bribe Him to let you into Heaven. It never occurred to you that He loved you first did it? He loves you enough to let you have me."

"You sound like an episode of 'Touched by an Angel,'" Constantine said which she did. The only difference being that he could not touch whatever it was; they seemed forbidden to get closer than five feet. He had found this out one day when he had tried to throw her out of the apartment.

"You would prefer Graham Greene maybe?" she smiled and John felt his heart do that little glow thing that bothered him so much. It was annoying because it felt too much like longing and happiness.

"Tell me that you love me and I can bridge this last distance between us," Isabel said and then there was a knock at the door and John Constantine tried his best to forget the creature's words and enjoy what he had instead of what he didn't.

The living Dodson twin looked strikingly beautiful in a black dress with a white shawl draped across her shoulders. It was breathtaking yet once again John found himself preferring a hospital gown instead and cursing himself because of it. They were always preaching it was what inside that counted; and they were probably right.

"Who were you talking to?" Angela asked.

"Myself," Constantine answered.

The female cop never saw the creature which resembled her sister; whatever the thing was it was visible only to him, the man knew.

"She looks so pretty," Isabel commented and the envy and sadness was evident in her voice. "I always felt like the ugly one, you know? I guess it was because I was looked at as a freak. If enough people start treating you like one...you start to _feel_ like one."

Constantine understood the words completely having lived them. He fought every urge to go to the thing and hug it, knowing fully well that he couldn't

The dinner was something simple. He was a lousy cook but still even that was better than the countless crummy restaurants they has been haunting since that first date.

As he watched Angela eating, Constantine wondered how Isabel had eaten. Was she bird like as her sister or did she relish her food? Even if the thing hounding him was Isabel he hadn't been able to find out the answer: the dead, after all, had no need to eat.

Dinner over, they retired to a sofa in the living room, the Isabel creature always remaining to watch them as if it was curious or masochistic; John decided on the latter, watching as the tears fell from its eyes.

Trying to forget them all together, John Constantine kissed Angela Dodson.

The moment their lips had met what he had always feared would happen did: the world didn't stop, the sun was still shining, even though it was night time, and he knew beyond a doubt that he wasn't in love with the beautiful cop.

He was hopelessly in love with her dead sister instead.

It still didn't stop him from desperately trying to forget it by fumbling with Angela's clothing trying to remove them so he could enter the woman quickly and hopefully forget his confusion and pain by getting lost in her. As the cop was trying to aid him by undoing his belt, John made the mistake of opening his eyes and seeing Isabel crying only five feet away from him.

In the tears falling down her cheeks, John Constantine saw no deception only pain and he knew that even if this vision was only in his head he could no longer keep on hurting it by denying what he had always felt inside of his heart.

"I love you, Isabel," he whispered.

Constantine saw the dead woman's tears stop falling and a smile claim her lips even as he heard Angela gasp and push him off of her.

"I'm _Angela_ ," she whispered.

"I know," Constantine said sadly. "I've been trying to pretend that I loved you and not her...I don't want to anymore. I am truly sorry Angela."

The woman placed the shawl quickly around her shoulders and left without looking back.

John looked around the apartment and could no longer see Isabel. Swearing he stumbled into the bedroom and lay down on the bed feeling just as lonely as before.

With something close to awe moments later, he shuddered as Isabel crawled into bed next to him and held him.

"Will she be okay?" Constantine asked.

"She'll survive," the dead Dodson said. "She always has. That's what made her lie to our parents about not seeing all of those horrible things."

"I always hated her a bit for that," John confessed. "For leaving you to hang and suffer alone. I love you, and am so much like you, it was like she had done it to me too. I think that's another reason why I couldn't love her."

"You and I...we're the same," Isabel stated. "He meant us for each other."

The man held her tightly, her strands of curled hair brushing his face.

"Constantine," the dead woman whispered.

"Yes?"

"I don't think that I have a vagina anymore. They aren't really needed up there."

The man sighed. So there really couldn't be a Heaven on Earth and God may love him but He still had a rotten sense of humour.

His frown fled as he embraced the woman he loved a little more tightly, remembering that all things were possible and that God helped those who helped themselves.

John Constantine kissed Isabel Dodson grateful that, at least, they still had a need for lips in Heaven.

And hands too.


End file.
